Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 182

December 19, 2019: Book Talk Recaps: Scuppernong Books

[Since I’ve been on sabbatical this Fall, in place of my usual semester recaps series I’ll be recapping some of the many book talks I’ve gotten to deliver over the last few months. Leading up to a special weekend post on what’s next for We the People !]On three great elements—two expected and one surprising—from my most recent bookstore talk.1)      Compelling, Contemporary Conversation: As this week’s series has illustrated, my book talks have consistently featured great audiences who have offered really thoughtful and thought-provoking responses and questions in the post-talk Q&As. I’d love to take all the credit for that; but while I think it’s certainly related to my book, I don’t think it’s due to my own presentation so much as to the ways in which this projects taps into the zeitgeist of our moment and into so many of the questions and themes that are on all of our minds these days. I felt that particularly acutely at Scuppernong—the T-word never came up, and yet our conversation focused fully and potently on what these histories and stories help us understand, engage, resist, analyze, strive for in late 2019. 2)      An Inspiring Indie Bookstore: Unlike Toadstool Books, the site of my prior bookstore booktalk, I had never been inside Greensboro’s Scuppernong Books before the evening of my talk there. I could tell from the store’s websitethat it was one of those unique and wonderful indie bookstores in which I could spend hours finding unexpected gems (while drinking coffee and/or beer from their bar), and that was all very much the case. But as I did some of that browsing ahead of my talk, I learned a lot more about Scuppernong’s incredible history of events and series, including (among many others) a year dedicated to the works and life of James Baldwin. Made me feel honored to be giving a talk there, and determined to support the existence and success of such inspiring indie bookstores (which, it seems from recent stories at least, are thankfully making a comeback). 3)      Steve!: Those two things I could have predicted, at least in general ways; but I honestly had no idea what it would mean to get to give a talk with my oldest friend in the audience (he lives in the area and his wife Jenn was the contact who made the talk possible). To quote what I wrote about the experience on Facebook: “Man, the feeling of giving a book talk with your oldest and dearest friend in the audience. I can only parallel it to my April talk with the boys there: all my identities and lives and loves coming together, to remind me of what’s best in life. Sorry, Conan, but this is what’s best in life. Feeling whole, like my young self and my current one, like a full circle arc.” Says it all, I think—and one more reason I’m so grateful for this sabbatical’s worth of booktalks!Last talk recap tomorrow,BenPS. Ideas for other places I could talk or write about We the People? Lemme know, and thanks!

December 18, 2019: Book Talk Recaps: Student Responses at Four NY Colleges

[Since I’ve been on sabbatical this Fall, in place of my usual semester recaps series I’ll be recapping some of the many book talks I’ve gotten to deliver over the last few months. Leading up to a special weekend post on what’s next for We the People !]In mid-November, I had the unique opportunity to give four talks in four days at four NY colleges. Thanks so much to my hosts: Hilda Chacónat Nazareth College, Bill Waddell at St. John Fisher College, Justin Behrend at SUNY Geneseo, and Brian Sweeneyat College of St. Rose. The whole week was wonderful, but the best part were the responses and questions from students at each institution. Here are four exemplary ones:1)      Indigenous Histories: A student of Mohawk heritage offered the first response and question at my first (Nazareth) talk, and I can’t imagine a more important starting point for this week of conversations. Although two of the eight chapters in We the People focus on Native American histories, my book talk does not feature them in its few examples; I think the book talk works well as is, but that means I always especially welcome a chance to think and talk about exclusion and inclusion when it comes to indigenous communities. And, to be clear and is the case with every book talk and every response I get, the chance to learn from the perspective, experiences, and knowledge of audience members, as this young woman potently illustrated.2)      UBI: Some questions, like that first one, push me to think further about topics I’ve already considered; others take the conversation in compelling directions I had not yet thought about. At St. John Fisher, a student raised such a question, asking whether the concept of a universal basic income (UBI) might not help alleviate the kinds of economic conditions that can contribute to the rise of exclusionary attitudes. While I’ve thought and talked a good bit about how times of downtown and recession seem to foment such attitudes, I had never approached the subject from that angle, and it led to a very interesting conversation about both the intersections and the distinctions between class and ethnicity/race. 3)      Heritage and Change: At Geneseo, the first question came from a student as well, and she asked a particularly complicated and important question about how the tension for 2nd generation immigrant Americans between maintaining a cultural heritage and moving toward a broader “American” identity relates to exclusion and inclusion. Some of the first classes I ever taught, as an adjunct at Boston University, focused extensively on the personal narratives of such 2nd generation immigrants, so it was nice to be able to return to those voices and experiences and apply some of my newer work to them. But one thing I’ve come to realize, through much of that work and also through pedagogical experiences like my use of a multi-generational family project in multiple courses, is that every American experiences some version of this tension between heritage and change, between the old and the new, between what we inherit from the past and what we might move into in the present. So to me, that’s a common ground that can link all American identities, even if it plays out differently in distinct cases to be sure.4)      Developing Our Perspectives: At St. Rose, one of the last questions (and thus one of the last questions of this wonderful week) came from a student who was wondering how I had developed my own perspective, what had led me to both the content and the argument of the talk and book. While of course there are many factors, the inspiring truth that I could share with him is that the most significant factor is precisely communities and conversations—like those at these book talks, like those in my online spaces (including this one, Twitter, my online writing gigs, and more), like my colleagues and students at FSU, like my adult learning classes and programs, like NEASA and NeMLA, and more. Every book both reminds me of that vital influence and adds another layer to it!Next talk recap tomorrow,BenPS. Ideas for other places I could talk or write about We the People? Lemme know, and thanks!

December 17, 2019: Book Talk Recaps: Two Public Scholarly Conversations

[Since I’ve been on sabbatical this Fall, in place of my usual semester recaps series I’ll be recapping some of the many book talks I’ve gotten to deliver over the last few months. Leading up to a special weekend post on what’s next for We the People !]On inspiring takeaways from two events at which I was fortunate enough to get to share my voice and ideas.In the last week of October, I had the chance to take part in two compelling and important public scholarly conversations. My friend and onlinecollaborator Matthew Teutsch has recently begun work as the Director of the Lillian E. Smith Center in Georgia, and he invited me to take part in this year’s symposium, sharing my take on Smith and exclusion/inclusion alongside scholars Tanya Bennett and Patricia Bell-Scott, documentary filmmaker Hal Jacobs, and graduate student (and inaugural Piedmont College Smith Scholar) Emily Pierce. And four days later I was headed down to Southeastern Louisiana University to take part in the National Women’s History Museum’s “Determined to Rise” program for the centennial of the 19th Amendment—my Saturday Evening Post column on women’s suffrage led to my invitation to this event by museum Director of Education Lori Ann Terjesen and Education Programs Manager Liz Eberlein, and I was honored to share my thoughts on exclusion, inclusion, and the suffrage movement alongside fellow scholars Samantha Cavell (our host at Southeastern), Elizabeth Hornsby, and Alecia Long.Those two events and conversations were impressive and important on a number of levels, but for this series and space I want to focus on takeaways for me related to We the People and my continued thoughts on exclusion, inclusion, and America. For one thing, as I said at the symposium, if I had known about Lillian Smith a couple years ago I would have worked to find a way to include her in the book, as both her critiques of exclusionary attitudes and her modeling of inclusive alternatives are as clear and convincing as any I’ve encountered in American writing and thought. But more broadly, preparing my talk on Smith in the context of those concepts helped me think through a connection of this project to another historical and cultural trend about which I’ve written a good deal over the years: the late 19thcentury rise to national prominence (and eventually dominance) of the white supremacist Lost Cause narrative. As Albion Tourgée put it in 1888, American literature had already by that moment become “not only Southern in type, but distinctly Confederate in sympathy.” For whatever reason, I hadn’t quite made the link between that trend and the many ways in which exclusionary narratives became more nationally dominant in that same era, as with the rise of the first immigration laws. But thanks to Lillian Smith (and Matthew), I’ve started to develop that connection, and I think it will continue to yield further analyses of these interconnected American myths.Another late 19thcentury American trend was the growth and amplification of the movement for women’s suffrage. And as I argued at the “Determined to Rise” panel, that movement toward inclusion was both subject to exclusionary backlash (especially in the rhetorical and physical violence directed at the suffrage activists) and featured its own exclusionary discriminations (especially directed at women of color). Moreover, the thoughts and perspectives of my fellow panelists helped me continue developing links between those tensions and concurrent histories like the rise of the Lost Cause narrative—such as in the career and perspective of Georgia activist Rebecca Latimer Felton, the first woman to serve in the US Senate and a champion of women’s suffrage and rights, but also a virulent white supremacist who gave one of American history’s most blatant speeches in support of the lynching epidemic (in August 1897, amidst the period of the most frequent such acts of racial terrorism). Exclusion and inclusion are not simply contested American views, they also (if not always) coexist in the same moments, the same histories, even the same communities. Which makes it that much more important to remember and engage those stories, as well as the voices of figures and writers like Lillian Smith who resisted exclusion and modeled inclusion.Next talk recap tomorrow,BenPS. Ideas for other places I could talk or write about We the People? Lemme know, and thanks!

December 16, 2019: Book Talk Recaps: Temple Graduate English Program

[Since I’ve been on sabbatical this Fall, in place of my usual semester recaps series I’ll be recapping some of the many book talks I’ve gotten to deliver over the last few months. Leading up to a special weekend post on what’s next for We the People !]On three awesome audience cohorts who together made the inaugural Temple Graduate English Program Distinguished Alumni Lecture an inspiring experience for the lecturer!1)      Faculty: My opportunity to give the lecture was due directly to Miles Orvell, my dissertation chair and one of the AmericanStudiers whose career (in every sense) has been a model for my own. Miles also asked one of the best questions I’ve gotten at any book talk thus far, pushing me to consider what shared vision of America the inclusive definition of the nation could argue for (his own proposed vision, of a community that embraces diversity and difference as core values, sounded like a good starting point to me!). But I also got great questions and responses from a number of other Temple English faculty, including Katherine Henry, James Salazar, and Roland Williams. Getting the chance to return to this hugely influential space and community as a colleague to such folks was and will remain a career highlight for me.2)      Graduate Students: Another fun experience, if also a slightly “Once More to the Lake” dejá vu one, was the chance to meet and chat with English PhD candidates. I tried to share some of the things I’ve learned about both the profession and job searches over my 15 years at Fitchburg State, as well as through my annual participation in the Teaching at Teaching-Intensive Institutions conference. But as always with the best communities and conversations, I learned as much (if not indeed more) from these folks as I was able to share with them, and that continued to be the case with their questions and responses after the talk. In particular, a grad student of Latinx heritage asked a probing and important question about how multi-generational immigrant American communities can not only buy into but even propagate exclusionary visions of American identity, often targeting newer immigrant communities as a result. 3)      Undergrads: I knew that faculty members and grad students would be in attendance, and knew Temple Graduate English well enough to know that they’d have great and helpful responses. But I wasn’t at all expecting what turned out to be the largest audience cohort at the talk, Temple undergrads. Apparently instructors in the university’s awesome Intellectual Heritage program had announced the talk (and perhaps given extra credit for attendance), and a number of their students not only came, but shared really insightful questions and responses. Temple’s undergraduate population is both hugely diverse and reflective of the city of Philadelphia (as it should be, as the city’s only public university), and I’m sure that both those elements contributed to their thoughtful perspectives on exclusion and inclusion. But those communal elements shouldn’t take anything anyway from these folks’ individual and impressive voices, and that’s what I love about each and every book talk—the chance to hear them, from expected and unexpected audiences alike.Next talk recap tomorrow,BenPS. Ideas for other places I could talk or write about We the People? Lemme know, and thanks!

December 14-15, 2019: Crowd-sourced Musical Icons

[On December 10, 1949, Antoine “Fats” Domino recorded “The Fat Man,” his first recording at New Orleans’ legendary J&M Recording Studios and one of the first rock ‘n roll recordings ever made. So this week I’ve AmericanStudied 50s musical icons, leading up to this crowd-sourced post drawn from the responses & ideas of fellow AmericanStudiers—add yours in comments, please!]My most recent Guest Poster, and one of my favorite current musicians, Kent Rose offers a few responses to the week’s posts:Responding to both Monday’s post and the week’s focus on Fats Domino, he writes, “Impossible for me to think of Fats without Dave Bartholomew, who produced, arranged and wrote for Fats and many others. On major Jewish influences, Fred Rose who came from Brooklyn, wrote show tunes, produced, arranged and co-wrote with Hank Williams, Sr.” He adds, “Another fascinating story for me is that of Doc Pomus, an oft overlooked musical giant.”And responding to Friday’s post, Kent writes, “I would respectfully disagree that Buddy Holly's sound was like Bill Haley's. Holly's original songs were lasting gems, covered many times, and that's why he's remembered more than Ritchie Valens, whose career was so brief that his catalogue was less substantial.”Also on Friday’s post, Jeff Brenner adds, “Favorite song of all time. Saw him live at Symphony Hall early 70s; lots of folks hate the song; I’ll have to avoid looking at replies.”Other responses:Anne Holub writes, “The history of the Louvin brothers is fascinating and sad. More country music but they also kind of fall in that category of early rock and roll.”Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think? Other musical icons or moments you’d highlight?

December 13, 2019: 50s Musical Icons: “American Pie”

[On December 10, 1949, Antoine “Fats” Domino recorded “The Fat Man,” his first recording at New Orleans’ legendary J&M Recording Studios and one of the first rock ‘n roll recordings ever made. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy 50s musical icons—share your own thoughts on them and any other musical icons and moments for a hard-rocking weekend post!]On the straightforward and subtler sides to the beloved eulogy to 50s music.Like I imagine many teenage boys in the nearly five decades since its release, I memorized the lyrics to Don McLean’s “American Pie” (1971) during my high school years. Partly that had to do with one very particular moment in the song, and just how much every teenage boy can associate with watching that certain someone dance with a certain someone else in the gym and knowing that the object of one’s romantic interest is instead “in love with him”—and how much we thus all felt at times like “a lonely teenage bronckin’ buck.” But partly it seems to me that McLean’s song captures and allegorizes a more general part of teenage life, the life and death significance that we place on music, relationships, friendships, social status, all those potentially fleeting things we care about and worry about and love and hate with such force.As this piece on McLean’s official website indicates, McLean intended the song as a tribute both to his own turbulent teenage years and to the even more turbulent American moment with which they coincided—a moment that began (for McLean and in the song) with the February 1959 death of Buddy Holly (among other popular artists) in a plane crash and would conclude a decade or so later with American society and culture in one of our most fractured states. His song thus became an anthem for two seemingly unrelated but often conjoined narratives: “The Day the Music Died,” the story of one of the most tragic days in American cultural history; and the decade-long loss of innocence that is often associated with the 1960s and all the decade’s tragedies and fissions. These aspects of McLean’s song are contained in every section: the February 1959-set introduction, the increasingly allegorical verses, and the far more straightforward chorus.But there’s another, and to my mind far more ambiguous, side to that chorus and to McLean’s song. The question, to boil it down, is this: why do the chorus and song focus so fully on Buddy Holly, rather than (for example) on his fallen peer Ritchie Valens? Holly is generally cited as far more influential in rock and roll history, but at the time of the crash he had only been prominent for a year and a half (since his first single, “That’ll be the Day” [1957]); Valens, while five years younger, was on a very similar trajectory, having recorded his first few hits in the year before the crash. Moreover, while Holly’s sound paralleled that of contemporaries such as Bill Haley, Valens’ Latino American additions distinguished him from his rock and roll peers. So it’s difficult not to think that an Anglo-centric vision of America has something to do with McLean’s association of “Miss American Pie” and “good old boys” with Holly rather than Valens—an association that, aided no doubt by McLean’s song (if complicated a bit by the hit film La Bamba [1987]), American narratives too often continue to make.Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So one more time: what do you think? Other musical icons or moments you’d highlight?

December 12, 2019: 50s Musical Icons: Sinatra and Elvis

[On December 10, 1949, Antoine “Fats” Domino recorded “The Fat Man,” his first recording at New Orleans’ legendary J&M Recording Studios and one of the first rock ‘n roll recordings ever made. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy 50s musical icons—share your own thoughts on them and any other musical icons and moments for a hard-rocking weekend post!]On the differences between influential and interesting, and why even the former can be problematic.It seems to me that you can’t tell the story of American popular music in the 20th century—and thus the story of American popular music period—without including Frank Sinatraand Elvis Presley in prominent roles. Indeed, given each man’s forays into acting, entrepreneurship, and other cultural and social arenas, I’m not sure you could leave them out of a broader 20th century history of America either. In their own ways, and in their own particular, most successful periods (Sinatra’s career extended well into Presley’s, of course, but he was at his most successful in its first couple decades, between 1935 and about 1955; Presley rose to prominence in the mid-1950s and was at his peak from then until about 1970), the two artists dominated their respective musical genres time and again, leaving legacies that extend well beyond record sales or awards (although both are among the most successful artists of all time as measured in those ways as well).So I wouldn’t necessarily argue with definitions of Sinatra and Elvis as among the most influential musical artists of all time (although I might, in a moment, argue that point too). But influential isn’t the same as interesting, and on that score both artists fall short for me. Partly that’s just about taste and how there’s, y’know, no accounting for it (de gustibus, non est disputandum, as our Roman friends knew); I’m not a big fan of either crooners or rockabilly, and thus likely outside of the ideal audience for either man’s biggest hits or signature styles. But my point here isn’t simply about my personal tastes, which I don’t expect are hugely interesting either—I’m thinking as well about the nature of the men’s mainstream popularity and prominence. Despite the unquestionable (if, in retrospect, very silly) controversy over Presley’s hips, that is, I would argue that both men succeeded as consistently as they did because they were largely unobjectionable, hitting cultural sweet spots with regularity in a way that doesn’t seem as interesting as artists who push the envelope or challenge norms.Moreover, I’m not sure that describing these two artists as influential is entirely justified either. After all, a significant percentage of both men’s songs were written by other songwriters or were covers of other artists; clearly their stunning voices and signature styles played a prominent role in making the songs as successful as they were, but I don’t know that simply singing and performing someone else’s songs qualifies an artist as influential. To be clear, I’m not trying to rehash the old argument about Presley exploiting African American music; that issue is part of the Elvis story to be sure, but the truth (as I argued at length in Monday’s post) is that a great deal of early rock and roll, if not indeed the entire genre, crossed racial and cultural boundaries. Instead, I’m simply trying to differentiate between what we might call performers and artists, and to argue that those whom we would locate in the former category (such as two men whose most consistent successes were as performers singing others’ words, or similarly as actors reciting others’ lines) might be more important than they were influential or interesting.Last 50s icon tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other musical icons or moments you’d highlight?

December 11, 2019: 50s Musical Icons: Patti Page

[On December 10, 1949, Antoine “Fats” Domino recorded “The Fat Man,” his first recording at New Orleans’ legendary J&M Recording Studios and one of the first rock ‘n roll recordings ever made. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy 50s musical icons—share your own thoughts on them and any other musical icons and moments for a hard-rocking weekend post!]On three signature songs from the 1950’s top-charting and best-selling female artist.1)      “Confess” (1947): There’s a certain amount of luck required for any artistic success, as illustrated nicely by a key element of Page’s first solo single (recorded after she had spent a couple years singing for other groups like the George Barnes Trio). Due to a musicians’ strike her label couldn’t find any background singers for the recording session, and so Page and influential Mercury Records engineer Bill Putnam decided to overdub Page’s own vocals instead, making her the first pop artist to harmonize with herself in this way. That innovative technique, born out of necessity but made successful by Page’s voice and talent, helped make “Confess” a Billboard Top 15 hit and would become a signature style for Page, featured in many of her biggest 1950s hits. 2)      “Tennessee Waltz”(1950): Page didn’t write “Confess” (that was songwriting duo Bennie Benjamin and George David Weiss), but it was given to her specifically by Mercury Records. Whereas “Tennessee,” Page’s best-selling single and one of the biggest-selling songs of the 1950s, came to her via a far more circuitous route. It was written in 1946 by country star Pee Wee Kingand first recorded by his band, then covered in short order (as was the norm in that era, as I noted in Monday’s post) by Cowboy Copas and R&B singer Erskine Hawkins and his orchestra. It was apparently that last version which renowned producer Jerry Wexler passed along to Page, and so it’s fair to say that her cover combined the song’s country origins with that R&B sound and her own pop inclinations (as well as another example of her signature overdubbing) to yield one of the first modern “crossover” hits. And a hit Page’s version certainly was, as it sold over 7 million copies throughout the 50s. 3)      “(How Much is That) Doggie in the Window?” (1953): I’ll confess (see what I did there?) that the popularity of novelty songs in early pop and rock music has always mystified me—apparently “My Ding a Ling” was Chuck Berry’s only number one hit, for one example; or there’s the number three hit “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight)?” (1959), for another. The popularity of Page’s “Doggie” (written by popular songwriter Bob Merrill), which went number one, stayed on the charts for five months, and sold over a million copies, is slightly more understandable, as it was part of a children’s concept album ( Arfie Goes to School ) and so had that built-in youthful audience and appeal going for it. And yet—I’m pretty sure “Doggie” was the only song from the 1950s best-selling female artist I had heard prior to researching this post, which is partly a commentary on my need to learn more about 50s music but also partly a reflection of just how ubiquitous such novelty tracks can become. In any case, there’s a lot more to Page, as I hope this post has illustrated!Next 50s icon tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other musical icons or moments you’d highlight?

December 10, 2019: 50s Musical Icons: Fats Domino

[On December 10, 1949, Antoine “Fats” Domino recorded “The Fat Man,” his first recording at New Orleans’ legendary J&M Recording Studios and one of the first rock ‘n roll recordings ever made. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy 50s musical icons—share your own thoughts on them and any other musical icons and moments for a hard-rocking weekend post!]On a few iconic moments in the career of a pioneering, legendary rock ‘n roller.1)      “The Fat Man”: Domino’s first hit under his debut recording contract with Lew Chudd’s Imperial Records, co-written with his frequent producer and collaborator (and an influential artist in his own right) Dave Bartholomew and recorded at Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Recording Studios on Rampart Street, wasn’t just the first rock record to sell a million copies (although it did hit that groundbreaking number by 1951). It also embodies rock’s profoundly cross-cultural origins, on so many levels: from Domino’s own French Creole heritage (his first language was Louisiana Creole) to Matassa’s multi-generational Italian American New Orleans legacy, from Chudd’s childhood in Toronto and Harlem as the son of Russian Jewish immigrants to African American artist Bartholomew’s time in the US Army Ground Forces Band (an integrated band despite the army’s segregation in the era) during WWII. It took all those individuals and all those legacies to make “Fat Man” and get American rock music rolling.2)      “The King”: Over the next couple decades Domino would record many more hit records and albums, with “Ain’t That a Shame” (1955) and “Blueberry Hill” (1956) the two biggest smashes. A February 1957 Ebony magazine feature dubbed him (on the cover no less) the “King of Rock ‘n Roll.” But it was an offhand line from another “King,” more than a decade later, that most potently reflects Domino’s status and influence. On July 31, 1969, Domino attended Elvis Presley’s first concert at the Las Vegas International Hotel; during a post-concert press conference, a reporter referred to Presley as “The King,” and he responded by pointing at Domino and noting, “No, that’s the real king of rock and roll.” At the same event Elvis took an iconic picture with Domino, calling him “one of my influences from way back.” I’ll have a bit more to say about Elvis and his influence in a couple days; but regardless of any other factors, this recognition for Domino from one of the most famous American rockers in history illustrates just how iconic Fats was within (and beyond) the industry. 3)      Katrina: Domino was known to be one of the most humble and grounded rock stars, and he and his wife Rosemary continued to live in their home in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward throughout the late 20thcentury and into the first decade of the 21st. Because of Rosemary’s ailing health they did not evacuate in the days before Hurricane Katrina hit the city, and in the storm’s chaotic aftermath their home was flooded and Domino and Rosemary were feared dead for a couple long days. But it turned out they had been rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter, and in 2006 and 2007 Domino made triumphant returns to the city and the music world: first with his 2006 album Alive and Kickin’, the proceeds from which benefitted Tipitina’s Foundation; and then with his last public performance (and first in many years), a legendary May 19, 2007 concert at Tipitina’s. If there had been any doubt that Domino represented New Orleans just as much and as well as he does rock ‘n roll, these culminating iconic moments laid them forever to rest.Next 50s icon tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other musical icons or moments you’d highlight?

December 9, 2019: 50s Musical Icons: Cross-Cultural Origins

[On December 10, 1949, Antoine “Fats” Domino recorded “The Fat Man,” his first recording at New Orleans’ legendary J&M Recording Studios and one of the first rock ‘n roll recordings ever made. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy 50s musical icons—share your own thoughts on them and any other musical icons and moments for a hard-rocking weekend post!]
The origins of rock and roll in America are significantly more cross-cultural, and most crucially more multi-directional in their influences, than our dominant narratives of it recognize.
To be sure, it’s virtually a truism that early white rock pioneers like Elvis Presley learned—often, the narrative goes, stole—many of their most popular songs and sounds from black artists; rapper Eminem’s self-definition (from the song “Without Me”) as “the worst thing since Elvis Presley / To do black music so selfishly / And use it to get myself wealthy” exemplifies the widespread acceptance of this narrative. And there’s no doubt that one of the moments that most explicitly established Elvis as a pop cultural force, his 1956 performance of “Hound Dog” on the Milton Berle Show, fits this narrative very fully: the song had originally been recorded by blues artist Big Mama Thornton in 1952, yet it was Elvis’s cover, accompanied by his controversial pelvic gyrations on the show, that catapulted both the song and Presley into the big time.
That’s already a sort of cross-cultural influence, of course, although a mostly one-sided and thus less than ideally communal one. But the specific details of “Hound Dog” reveal a much more complicated and (to my mind) inspiring cross-cultural origin: the song was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, a Jewish-American songwriting team that also produced some of the decade’s biggest hits for African American artists, including The Coasters’ 1958 #1 record “Yakety Yak,” Wilbert Harrison’s 1959 #1 “Kansas City,” and Ben E. King’s 1960 #1 “Stand By Me” (which King co-wrote).  By any measure, Leiber and Stoller’s songs, as sung by these African American artists, helped establish rock and roll as a central cultural presence—and in their mentoring of a young (also Jewish-American) Phil Spector, they likewise directly contributed to rock’s expanding success over the subsequent decades.
There were of course many other late 1950s artists and moments that likewise contributed to the explosion of rock and roll, and I would similarly stress the multi- and often cross-cultural aspects of the period: from African American pioneers such as Little Richard (who came out of the Southern gospel tradition), Chuck Berry (who grew up playing the Missouri blues), and Bo Diddley (a Chicago bluesman) to the three artists killed in the tragic 1959 plane crash (Mexican American teen sensation Ritchie Valens and Texans Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper), from the Detroit “singing cowboy” Bill Haley (most famously of The Comets) to the Louisiana rockabilly of Jerry Lee Lewis, these early rockers came out of every region and tradition and profoundly influenced both each other’s work and the history of American music and culture.Rock and roll has often been called a genuinely American form of music, and I would most certainly agree: its cross-cultural origins exemplify the best of our national community and conversations. Next 50s icon tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other musical icons or moments you’d highlight?